notes on london

The world is mine again and it feels so good to be reunited with myself. I am reunited with the girl who lived spontaneously, made instant best friends with strangers and seeked life in it’s most weird, wild and wonderful forms. Maybe I was her all along, I think she was just in hibernation for the last few years, begging to come out yet knowing there’d be nowhere for her to go. I had to actively change the surroundings of my life to allow her out of her cage again. Get vaccinated, save your money, exercise. Is it possible to imagine the life you want? Maybe, just maybe.

I look to the palms of my hands and realise, the world is there again, the world is mine again.

Snippets from the notes in my phone:

It is a unique experience to meet people who are just beginning their London journey. I want to shake them and urge them to be present because this beautiful chapter will too pass. One day these streets will feel like home, enjoy the process of getting there. You will miss these moments more than you can know right now. Please time, let me do it all again.

The waft that hits you as you walk into an English pub. The warmth, not just in temperature but in atmosphere, somehow comforting, even if it is the first time you’ve stepped through the doors. The over-powering scent of wooden bars that seem to carry the memories of all of the nights that have occurred within these walls. Old beer, laughter and Sweet Caroline. (Ba! ba! ba!).

Shit, I spent so many years of my life trying to get as drunk as possible and am only realising now that actually, just tipsy is the best place to be.

Sometimes you go out and nothing exciting happens but sometimes there will be a guy you just met across the table who enjoys catching your eyes as much as you do his and that will feel exciting, enjoy it.

12.09.22: Quiet, nothing, no plans, no people. Alone, all alone. Just me in this room I’ve never been in before, surrounded by the stuff of people I have never met. Wondering what it would feel like to belong here, wondering when I’ll feel like I belong again. A hug. A hug from someone I love. Hold me while I cry because this feeling is harder than I remember.

20.09.22: I belong here now. The outside of my comfort zone is the most perfect place to be. I missed this. Friends, instant friends. “Where are you from?” “Australia, but I’m on my way to live in Canada, what about you?”  Fleeting intensity, closeness, instant.

Door code: C2379Z

London is a book of a billion stories, home to billions of memories. Each lane, everywhere you turn, has so much connected to it, and you can feel it. The back of the toilet door in a pub, filled with messages, moments in time stuck to a singular place. “Wish you were here”.

No sex is worth going to zone 6 for, ever.

Notes are the way I talk to my past self, future self, communicate with her through this little place in my phone. Hello Holly, it’s me, Holly.

I wish I could show you. It’s better than you remembered. I remember why. I remember why. This is why.

Isn’t is funny how you only ever see a face for the first time once? How these people who could have walked past me in the street and I wouldn’t have flinched yet now, only a week later, I’d smother them with hugs if we were to pass.

I belong on my own in the big places but I belong in company in the small places.

Life feels like life when I do it the way I want to.

Do not be greedy. Show gratitude for what you were given. You got everything you came here to do.

“I couldn’t…… unless”

If you read my blogs and enjoy them, please do reach out and send your love, it is always appreciated. - Holly